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The two coastal Californian cities are suing five major oil companies for the future costs of defending against sea level rise, arguing that these corporations directly accelerated climate change while knowing the damage they were causing and at the same time lobbying to fight climate regulations that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

This behavior, according to the lawsuit, resembles the campaign of misinformation waged by the tobacco industry in the 20th century.

Global Citizen campaigns on the Global Goals, which call for the total elimination of greenhouse gas emissions. You can take action on this issue here.

Separate lawsuits have been filed against BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxonmobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips. City attorneys from San Francisco and Oakland are asking for a fund to be set up to pay for the escalating costs of climate change.

“They launched a multi-million dollar disinformation campaign to deny and discredit what was clear even to their own scientists: global warming is real, and their product is a huge part of the problem,” Dennis Herrera, San Francisco’s city attorney, told The Independent.

“Now, the bill has come due,” he said. “It’s time for these companies to take responsibility for the harms they have caused and are continuing to cause.”

In San Francisco and Oakland, whole neighborhoods could be submerged, causing the destruction of billions in real estate and essential infrastructure like airports, according to analyses offered by the cities.

Consequently, the two cities are looking to secure billions of dollars to fund necessary protection measures.

San Francisco currently has a project planned for $350 million to protect coastal areas.

“Global warming is an existential threat to humankind, to our ecosystems and to the wondrous, myriad species that inhabit our planet,” Barbara Parker, city attorney for Oakland, told The Independent.

“These companies knew fossil fuel-driven climate change was real, they knew it was caused by their products and they lied to cover up that knowledge to protect their astronomical profits,” she said.

The companies targeted by the lawsuit argue that they aren’t responsible for the effects of climate change and that, in any case, lawsuits aren’t the best way to go about dealing with a globally diffused problem.

A spokesman for Chevron said that legal action would not help the fight against climate change.

"We strongly support the agreement in Paris to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius or less, but we believe climate change is a complex societal challenge that should be addressed through sound government policy and cultural change to drive low-carbon choices for businesses and consumers, not by the courts,” Shell said in a statement.

This lawsuit isn’t the first of its kind in the US or even in California.